After the Bastille fell, rumors spread throughout Paris that the king was furious and would soon send a great army to suppress the people. They said the enraged king had ordered that in Paris, "trees be put to the torch, stones put to the sword, and the people replaced with a new breed." The whole city grew tense, and crowds filled the streets, building barricades. Some people, gripped by fear, even tore down houses to build them—though most of the time, it was the houses of "the tyrant's lackeys" that came down. And just how many "lackeys of the tyrant" there were depended on how much material the barricades needed.
Almost overnight, every hired carriage driver in Paris was put out of work, because barricades and roadblocks had sprung up on every street. Some inexperienced fellows hadn't even thought to leave passages for people to come and go when they built them.
To defend against a possible attack, all the militiamen in Paris felt they ought to unite and fight under a single banner. So representatives of the militias from every district gathered to discuss setting up a unified command.
The militiamen from every district sincerely wanted to unite. It was an instinctive response for human beings, social animals that they were, to band together in a crisis. But uniting meant establishing a command structure and choosing a commander. The militiamen soon realized that finding someone suitable would be difficult.
Most of them didn't know one another, and most knew they lacked military skills. The battle to besiege the Bastille had shown them just how wide the gap was between themselves and regular troops. Though each of them claimed not to care about the royal army around Montmartre Heights, in truth, they were all trembling inside. Some even dreamed of